“I want you with me, Connor, but only make that decision if it’s really what you want too. And don’t make it tonight.” Emery grinned as he started to sway again. “We might be on a bit of an endorphin high after this. We have time.”
“I know.” Connor turned his head to lay it against Emery’s shoulder. “But you were the first crush I ever had, Em. I’m never going to stop loving you as strongly as I do now. Besides, you’d get lonely without me in a hundred years or so. And bored. Definitely bored.”
“Definitely.”
Connor lifted his head, and when their eyes met this time, it was easy to lean forward and press their lips together. The difficult decisions ahead of them could come later.
~
I’ll admit, Connor’s idea for our Senior prank was pretty inspired. When Connor’s sister Ryn graduated, each Senior carried a Lego up to the front and placed it as part of a giant Lego creation they built piece by piece before accepting their diplomas.
We carried squares of toilet paper.
“Get it, coz the bomb threats were always in the girls’ bathroom?” Connor laughed jovially about it when he explained to me and Michael.
Michael ate the idea right up. Bomb threats, an almost school shooting, they couldn’t keep our class down or sour our dispositions. We took it in stride, and the principal had a pile of toilet paper at his feet by the end of our 250 person walk.
Connor graduated as 2nd in our class behind Nick at number 1, and I came up as 10th, which meant we had a special privilege of being honored as the top 10, and given the option to have one of us give the closing remarks at the graduation ceremony. Michael, as Student Council President, gave the opening remarks, but no one in the top 10 wanted to speak. So I volunteered. There were so many things I wanted to say. I didn’t want to bring up the bomb threats—Michael jokingly did that, and referenced the toilet paper. I didn’t want to talk about the murders, or how Connor had almost been another one. So instead I told everyone to take a step back and remember one thing.
“We’re all angels.”
A few snickers flitted through the crowd.
“One winged-angels, anyway,” I clarified. “Several of my friends out there know I took this concept from a video game, but that just goes to show how important video games are to a solid education.”
More laughs.
“You see, every last one of us is a one-winged angel, proving that it is impossible for anyone to fly alone. Imagine how far a person could go in life if they had 200 wings beating together? We have that power, as long as we never forget what we’ve shared, and never forget each other.”
Several people I didn’t usual talk much with came up to me afterward to thank me for what I’d said. Liz even hugged me. But Connor was the one person in the crowd I most wanted to rejoin.
It was the next day that Alec called me and Connor out to the Leonards’ house. He’d been at graduation to congratulate us, but didn’t stick around with so much family business going on. Connor and I assumed he was asking us over to say goodbye.
He met us at the door and ushered us inside with his usual wide grin. He wore jeans and a ‘Han Shot First’ shirt, but hadn’t bothered with his blazer for once. “My home is your home,” he said as we entered and started to take off our shoes.
“Is that how a vampire politely asks us to help him with moving boxes?” Connor said.
We laughed, but gaped a moment later when Alec led us into the living room.
Nothing was packed up. Some things that we had helped him pack up—as part of the ruse when he was still helping with the hunters, and a few times since then—had been unpacked and were back in their old locations. There were even a few pieces of new furniture and pieces of knickknacks and art on the walls.
“I’ve decided to stay.”
Connor and I whirled on him. “Seriously?”
Neither of us tried to hide that we weren’t upset to hear this.
“Wait. You realize we’re not staying, right?” Connor said. “After this summer, we’ll be in the Cities at the U.”
“And I’m sure it will be a lovely place to visit from time to time when you need me. I rather like the small town charm of this place. I can see what William and Mallory must have first fallen in love with. You parents are all lovely people. And it’s extra incentive to be sure you both visit like good little boys on occasion.”
“What if they ask after your wife?” Connor asked.
“They’ll just have to forget I had one. And then remember again should Wendy come calling for a visit. I certainly hope you both don’t mind.” He smiled a little more guarded. You wouldn’t think the oldest and most powerful being in the world could look anxious from wanting to please two teenagers like a fretting parent. I kind of loved him for it.
“I kept convincing myself not to beg you to stay so I wouldn’t seem like I couldn’t take care of myself,” I said, and then laughed and scratched the back of my neck, “so thanks for helping us avoid any embarrassing groveling.”
“It is pretty cool to have the king of all vampires in our back pockets,” Connor nodded with an overly appraising look around the house.
Alec crossed his arms and looked down his nose at Connor. “You think so, do you?”
“Please,” Connor pushed at Alec’s crossed forearms, not even slightly causing him to sway, “you’re a teddy bear and you know it, Fright Night. Have you ever even killed anyone before?”
The light mood dropped out of the air the second the words left Connor. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open searching for words to fix what he’d said as Alec’s expression turned to cool neutral.
“Wow, that…I didn’t mean…I am so sorry, that is—”
“Exactly why the pact means so very much to me, Connor,” Alec said in a plain voice. “And also why I’ve decided to stick around. Youth can be highly motivating. Just think of how much you accomplished with so little intervening on my part. William and Mallory would be proud. Of both of you. Although…” His manic grin returned as he moved swiftly away from us toward an empty space on the wall.
The empty space on the wall where Cloak and Dagger used to hang.
“It’s a shame this spot remains so empty. But I believe I may have just the thing to fill it.” He reached down and plucked a framed photograph from the floor.
As he lifted it to hang it on the nail still protruding from the wall and then stepped back, we saw that it was a picture taken on the night of our personal Prom, of everyone in attendance who had been able to fit, with Connor and me in the center.
Alec stood back to admire it and grinned. “Aurora is such a dear.”
“It would have been her,” Connor said, though he was smiling too.
“Did you say something about helping with moving boxes?” Alec clapped his hands together suddenly. “Because I actually could use your help with some unpacking upstairs.”
Connor groaned.
I laughed.
Alec turned and called after us to follow him up the stairs. I paused a moment, left in the living room with Connor. The fireplace wasn’t going; it was too warm for that now, unlike weeks ago when all of this started.
The rug had been replaced. The coffee table. But the sofa and several other things were still the Leonards’ possessions. It might have been sad to stand here after everything that had happened, but Alec understood the better response to living in someone’s shadow. It just meant that if you turned around, you’d find yourself looking into the light.
“What?” Connor scrunched his brow as I stared at him.
I reached for the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Maybe someday soon we’d ask Alec to turn him. Maybe we’d wait a while. Whatever we did, we’d do it together.
THE END
Author’s
Note
Everything in this book is true.
Well…based off the truth.
Okay, except for the parts about vampires. But everything else, I swear, is based off of something real that happened to me, my friends, or my family during these young impressionable years of middle and high school.
The first scene? My husband did that. The characters’ senior spring play? My senior spring play (I played Dottie). Tim, chief of police, living across the street? Totally happened.
Falling slowly in love with your best friend, and fitting together so well once you finally get your acts together, that it feels like you must have been a couple in a past life? Okay, that didn’t happen until college, but still—fact.
I hope you enjoyed this fictional but very personal story filled with memories, shenanigans, and some of my favorite things—like playing dress up as Captain Cold and The Flash.
And vampires.
Life as a Teenage Vampire Page 32
